This week the children are being welcomed back to our Forest School. It has been lovely to see so many new faces amongst our big Harlow Green family and it is important for them to find their feet gently.
With this in mind we went out onto the site and lay down together. If the children wanted they could take their shoes off and swish their feet about. The socks were all slippery on the tarp and we could feel the grass and hard earth underneath. As we sat we talked about what Ready, Respectful and Safe looks like in the Forest School. We get Ready for the weather and open our minds to adventure. We are Respectful to all living things. That means embracing the weird and wonderful creatures in all their diversity. We count ourselves in that of course, for surely we are the weirdest creatures of all. We Respect the living environment, we nurture and protect it so that it can thrive. We stay Safe by using Stick Safety techniques and remembering when we take risks, we do so with conscious thought and we always check what’s Safe to eat before we pop it in our mouths.
At this point, if they liked, the children could take off their socks too. At first we lay and felt the breeze on our toes, we listened to the birds (and the noisy traffic), the children shared stories of things they had done in the Forest School so the new children had a better understanding of what is to come. Then those that chose to put their feet or hands directly on the ground, feeling the spiky, tickly grass and the solid earth. We brushed our soles over the plants, feeling the textures. A lovely way to start the Autumn term.
Once we had our shoes and socks back on we went to do some foraging. The children found lots of fat, juicy blackberries and checked whether our abundance of apples are ripe. We’ll have to wait a bit longer yet for most of them. However one of our new apple trees had the first, fully ripe fruit and very delicious it was too. Of course the chickens got to try some of the windfall apples.
